


ハッピーバースデー (Happy Birthday)

by shiranuikai



Category: Pro Wrestling NOAH, Professional Wrestling, 新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Genre: AU, Birthday, Drinking, Drunk Texting, M/M, Pining, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:35:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28055484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiranuikai/pseuds/shiranuikai
Summary: Naomichi Marufuji throws himself a birthday party while KENTA prepares for a G1 match on the same night in Tokyo.
Relationships: Hideo Itami | KENTA/Marufuji Naomichi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	ハッピーバースデー (Happy Birthday)

**Author's Note:**

> Isami Kodaka posted some very cute photos of Maru's birthday party back in September during the N-1/G1 that have not left me, and I never like to waste opportunities for some wistful pining. Enjoy!

**KENTA, Tokyo Dome Hotel, 9:05 PM.**

_Zack Sabre Jr. bridges to reverse out of a hold from Naito Tetsuya and regains control. He brings his foot up to the back of Naito’s knee and seconds later, Naito comes crashing to the mat. A quick stance change and Sabre’s knee is on Naito’s neck. He goes to work bending Naito’s arm back, extending the fingers, toying with him in that unmistakably Suzukigun-way all of those bastards played with their prey-_

Kenta’s phone began buzzing and he audibly groaned, annoyed at another interruption. He paused the video on his iPad and pulled his phone closer, swiping to read the message that had just come in from Takahashi Yujiro. It wasn’t anything important, just more nonsense about petty drama from the A Block that Yujiro kept sending to the Bullet Club LINE chat. He muted the thread, which felt satisfying after an hour of struggling to review tape in his hotel room ahead of a match with Sabre the next day. He had learned about how terrible the mechanics of New Japan’s streaming site were more than anything new or valuable he could glean from Sabre’s playbook.

It wasn’t entirely Yujiro’s fault. He knew this, but it was much easier to blame the Bullet Club LINE chat (which irritated him most days anyway) than it was to address what was really distracting him. The LINE app was still open, taunting him to check other messages, so he gave in as he had all day. He toggled to his thread with Marufuji Naomichi and reread Marufuji’s texts to him from that morning.

 **Marufuji** : I know you’re busy with the G1, but you should come to the bar tonight for my birthday party if you can make it. 7 PM, the usual place.

 **Marufuji** : We’d love to see you.

 **Marufuji** : Asshole.

Kenta smiled wryly. Michi-san truly was the type of person to throw himself a birthday party at 41.

\--------

**Naomichi Marufuji, a bar in Tokyo, 9:26 PM.**

“Hey, Marufuji-san! Are you listening?”

Maru looked up from his phone and grinned at Kodaka Isami, who seemed to be playfully harassing an inebriated but nonetheless delighted looking Kitamiya Masa. “Absolutely not!” 

Their table of companions laughed, far too loudly, and quickly became distracted by Kodaka attempting to wrestle Kitamiya out of his chair. He should have been more engaged with his friends, who had given up their Monday night to celebrate his birthday belatedly with him, but Maru used the distraction to glance at his LINE messages again, still open to his thread with Kenta. No new texts, which was completely unsurprising given Kenta’s abysmal track record, but he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment every time his screen lit up and it wasn’t a message from him. 

He didn’t really expect an acknowledgement of the invitation he had sent that morning and he certainly wasn’t anticipating Kenta to come walking through the door at any moment, especially given his G-1 schedule, but even a little sarcasm, maybe an insult about the ridiculousness of men over a certain age throwing themselves birthday parties would have been welcome. He scrolled up in his texts with Kenta to Saturday, the day of his actual birthday, and reread a message from him that he hadn't been able to put out of his mind.

 **KENTA:** Happy Birthday, Michi-san. N-1 today, right? Good luck.

It was completely innocuous, almost totally insignificant in the grand scheme of messages he had received from Kenta over his lifetime, and yet it had stopped him dead in his tracks when he was preparing for the N-1 in Niigata that day. Kenta had never been great with remembering dates and wasn’t particularly sentimental, so receiving a birthday text at all had been shocking, to put it plainly. Out of character, even.

He made a face and locked his phone screen, pushing the device away from him. A text like that shouldn’t give him so much… what was the word he was searching for? Hope? Was it really something as mawkish as that? But as he mulled that over while watching the waitress stop to refill his wine glass, he knew it was true. The text was a small gesture but it seemed to be part of a series of small gestures that represented a marked change in Kenta since he had come home a little over a year ago… at least as far as the two of them were concerned. He couldn’t speak for anyone else.

The door of the bar banged open and Maru leaned forward where he sat to watch a small party of thirty somethings enter and take seats at a table near the front. He frowned and sat back. Sugiura was watching him carefully but he pretended not to notice right away. He let Sugiura catch his eye as he lifted his refreshed glass to his lips.

Sugiura gestured to his phone. “Who is so important tonight?”

Maru shrugged and took a long sip of wine. “No one.”

\--------

**Kenta, Tokyo Dome Hotel, 9:45 PM.**

Kenta had given up reviewing tape. If he couldn’t beat Zack Sabre Jr. without it tomorrow, well, that was on him. He had been up against worse odds, at any rate. He threw himself on the bed and went back to staring at Marufuji’s invitation, phone held above his face, hoping the words would finally re-form into something with greater meaning, perhaps telling him exactly who _we_ was. He could probably make a few educated guesses about the old NOAH guard. Sugiura perhaps, but who else? He wasn’t sure anymore. 

He had been home for over a year now and some days he felt closer to gaining back some of the ground he lost during his time away in America and other days he felt just as far away, like he had never actually left Florida. There was no telling if that feeling would dissipate with time or if it was part of him now, that sense of being displaced, simultaneously existing in two places and nowhere all at once. Not that he wasn’t used to feeling like the outsider. It was the path he chose for himself and he slept soundly at night, of that he was certain. But then why was a simple invitation to a birthday party in a bar with Marufuji and ostensibly their friends vexing him so much?

He swiped away from LINE and opened Twitter instead. After scrolling aimlessly for a few moments, he paused on a picture tweeted by Isami Kodaka that made him sit upright in bed. It was Marufuji holding a cake made in the image and colors of the current NOAH ring. He looked… well, he looked _good_. NOAH were at the tail end of their long tournament but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the picture. 

Kenta used his thumbs to zoom in over his face and noted that Marufuji’s cheeks were positively pink. He unconsciously bit his lip. If they had started drinking right when they arrived, and they surely did, everyone was well into their cups by now. He liked the way Marufuji looked when he was tipsy, flushed just like that, smiling unreservedly. It was _cute_. He touched the photo and brought up the three dots in the upper right hand corner of the screen, scrolled down to “save photo”, and swiped to bring himself back to Kodaka’s timeline.

He had posted two other pictures, one of Sugiura, who was apparently adamant about calling him ‘Kidaki’, and another of Kodaka laying next to a very intoxicated Masa Kitamiya. They looked like they were having fun, and that troubled Kenta in a way that it shouldn’t, but it was difficult, painful even, to watch people he cared about, _Marufuji_ especially, enjoying themselves together when he wasn’t sure where his place was amongst them anymore. They all looked the same, albeit older, frequented the same haunts, told the same stories ad nauseum, and shared many of the same wounds, but Kenta felt irrevocably changed from his time away.

He scrolled back to the photo of Marufuji with the cake and sighed. There was probably still time if he hurried. He could catch him before they left if he tried... and wasn’t that the point of texting Marufuji on his birthday, anyway? To prove he was trying.

\--------

**Naomichi Marufuji, a bar in Tokyo, 10:23 PM.**

Their party had started causing quite the scene after the cake was cut, especially when Kodaka had decided he wanted to lay cheek to cheek with Kitamiya in the bar. Maru made another round of apologies to the waitress as she cleared their plates, but she didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps she had seen worse in that corner of Tokyo than two very intoxicated wrestlers dragging each other to the floor in a fit of giggles, or more likely, she was simply used to it. 

Sugiura was antagonizing “Kidaka” and Kitamiya, suggesting all sorts of crude things they could try next, and Maru found himself laughing, but his mind was drifting again. He dragged his phone toward him and touched the home button- a few Twitter notifications, a handful of LINE messages, but none from Kenta. Frustrated, he unlocked the screen, pulled up the LINE app, and stared at the blinking blue cursor. He was brazen by nature, and certainly drunk enough to needle Kenta if he was going to continue to be ignored.

**Hey, dick head.**

No, that didn’t feel right. Accurate insult, but not the right approach. He tapped the “x” button a few times and erased the message.

**We’ll be here for a while longer. Just come for one drink, please.**

He made a face and deleted that one too. Since when did he plead for anyone’s company?

**Preparing for ZSJ can’t be more important than me.**

Well, that one might be accurate. Kenta took every match seriously, almost annoyingly so, and if he still didn’t respond, Maru didn’t want to know there was some truth in that statement. It had nothing to do with Sabre, not really, but it would still bruise his ego in a way that was sure to linger. Not to mention, Kenta would realize Maru had been keeping up with his G1 schedule, and that was something he’d rather keep to himself for now. He backspaced and tried again.

**Can I see you later?**

That one was so startlingly earnest that Maru nearly laughed at himself. He erased it immediately and reached for his wine, finishing the glass easily. There was part of him that resented how often Kenta left him feeling like a school boy, totally uninhibited, just desperately trying to catch an eye. It always left him raw, like an exposed nerve, and it didn’t help that he was usually at his most wretched where alcohol was involved. Maru let his finger ghost over the ‘call’ button in Kenta’s thread. Surely he wasn’t that bold, even in this state. Nothing good could possibly come from drunkenly calling Kenta while he was apparently in the throes of preparation for Sabre in Korakuen the next day... but he wanted to find out.

“What does ‘No One’s’ name start with, Michi-san? Give me a hint.”

Marufuji quickly locked his phone and glanced up at Sugiura, who was looking at him with a knowing and very annoying twinkle in his eye.

“Starts with an ‘F’, as in ‘Fuck Off’.”

\--------

**KENTA, Tokyo Dome Hotel, 10:33 PM.**

Kenta refreshed Kodaka’s feed but he hadn’t posted any new photos since the ones of Marufuji, Sugiura, and Kitamiya. Everyone else’s feeds seemed quiet as well. He rifled through his suitcase, pushing around his clean clothes, searching for something to change into that wasn’t a pair of black sweatpants. He didn’t have a lot of options in that department. G1 packing was comfort and convenience over style. His attire hardly mattered, but it was a good distraction while he dragged his feet about leaving the hotel for the bar.

He stopped sifting through his suitcase and glanced up at his reflection in the mirror. He looked scruffier than usual. He didn’t shave on long tours, a habit from their NOAH seniors he didn’t think he’d ever be able to break, and his hair was already growing back after his last trip to the barber. He ran his fingers through his hair but it didn’t seem to help. He supposed his hair didn’t matter either, at least not to Marufuji, but he suddenly felt self conscious in a way he wasn’t used to. It was obvious he was searching for reasons not to go. The state of his hair and his lack of suitable pants shouldn’t make the top five.

He sat back on the edge of his bed and grabbed his phone, opened the LINE app, and stared at the invitation. It shouldn’t be this hard. It was a party with people he knew, people he liked, people he _cared_ about. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d rather see Marufuji alone, without the added pressure of eyes on them and everyone else’s expectations. He supposed he could ask him to come by the hotel… that was more tempting than he cared to admit. Marufuji would probably agree to it, especially if he was in the mood to keep the night going, but that didn’t feel right either. It implied things, for one, whether Kenta meant it to or not.

There was a very clear choice to make. He could be impulsive and rush things simply because photos on Twitter were magnifying the loneliness he was already feeling during the G1 tour, knowing Marufuji would almost certainly bite, or he could find a modicum of patience. For once in their lives, he could handle something delicately. Kenta started typing.

**I wish I could be there. I miss you.**

He deleted that immediately. _Jesus Christ_ , he thought to himself. He tried again.

 **I’m sorry that I can’t be there. I hope you’re having a good time.** He sent that message before he could change his mind.

Kenta thought for a few more moments before typing, **I will see you soon.** He sent that too, and then turned off his phone, placing it on the nightstand next to the bed. He didn’t want to sit around anticipating Marufuji’s response, if he responded at all, though it seemed likely he would, or refreshing Twitter waiting for the possibility of new photos. He sat down in front of his iPad again and clicked the home button, booting up the video of Sabre and Naito. Kenta tried not to think about the picture of Marufuji from Kodaka’s Tweets, and certainly not his delighted smile, or the warm feeling he got somewhere in the pit of his stomach when his mind wandered back to Marufuji’s flushed cheeks.

\--------

**Naomichi Marufuji, a bar in Tokyo, 10:42 PM.**

Sugiura was drunkenly telling, though some would call it performing, a very amusing story about a prank he had pulled on Taue-san in the NOAH dojo some years ago, which was captivating the group. Maru’s heart leapt into his throat when his phone’s screen lit up with Kenta’s name. He quickly and quietly pulled it toward him, nearly fumbling it in his attempt to be discreet.

 **KENTA:** I’m sorry that I can’t be there. I hope you’re having a good time.  
**KENTA:** I will see you soon.

He exhaled through his nose and reread the texts several times, allowing his mind time to process them through the haze of too much wine. He wasn’t coming, which shouldn't have been surprising, but he felt those familiar pangs of disappointment all the same. However, Maru couldn’t help but linger over _I will see you soon_. Perhaps he’d feel differently in the morning when he was nursing his hangover, but that felt like a promise, and he could live with that for now. He started typing.

**Just say when.**

He sent it immediately, without really thinking about it. It was too eager a response and far more vulnerable than he could afford to be, but he wanted Kenta to know it was a matter of “when” and not “if” for him. _Just meet me halfway_ , he thought. Loud laughter from around the table brought him out of his thoughts. Sugiura had made it to the final act of his story, and everyone was thoroughly enjoying the punch line. He chuckled as Sugiura threw a wink his way.

“All good, Michi-san?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. All good.” He locked his phone, slipped it into the pocket of his gym shorts, and tapped his empty glass. “Do me a favor and order another round, would you?”


End file.
